DISTANCE SAVED BY THE PANAMA CUTOFF
COMPARATIVE DISTANCES (IN NAUTICAL MILES) IN THE WORLD’S SEA TRAFFIC AND DIFFERENCE IN DISTANCES VIA PANAMA CANAL AND OTHER PRINCIPAL ROUTES
| From | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| To | Via | New York | New Orleans | Liver- pool | Hamburg | Suez | Panama | ||
| Seattle | - | Magellan | 13,953 | 14,369 | 14,320 | 14,701 | 15,397 | ... | |
| Panama | 6,080 | 5,501 | 8,654 | 9,173 | 10,447 | 4,063 | |||
| Distance | saved | 7,873 | 8,868 | 5,666 | 5,528 | 4,950 | ... | ||
| San Francisco | - | Magellan | 13,135 | 13,551 | 13,502 | 13,883 | 14,579 | ... | |
| Panama | 5,262 | 4,683 | 7,836 | 8,355 | 9,629 | 3,245 | |||
| Distance | saved | 7,873 | 8,868 | 5,666 | 5,528 | 4,950 | ... | ||
| Honolulu | - | Magellan | 13,312 | 13,728 | 13,679 | 14,060 | 14,756 | ... | |
| Panama | 6,702 | 6,123 | 9,276 | 9,795 | 11,069 | 4,685 | |||
| Distance | saved | 6,610 | 7,605 | 4,403 | 4,265 | 3,687 | ... | ||
| Guayaquil | - | Magellan | 10,215 | 10,631 | 10,582 | 10,963 | 11,659 | ... | |
| Panama | 2,810 | 2,231 | 5,384 | 5,903 | 9,192 | 793 | |||
| Distance | saved | 7,405 | 8,400 | 5,198 | 5,060 | 2,467 | ... | ||
| Callao | - | Magellan | 9,613 | 10,029 | 9,980 | 10,361 | 11,057 | ... | |
| Panama | 3,363 | 2,784 | 5,937 | 6,456 | 7,730 | 1,346 | |||
| Distance | saved | 6,250 | 7,245 | 4,043 | 3,905 | 3,327 | ... | ||
| Valparaiso | - | Magellan | 8,380 | 8,796 | 8,747 | 9,128 | 9,824 | ... | |
| Panama | 4,633 | 4,054 | 7,207 | 7,726 | 9,000 | 2,616 | |||
| Distance | saved | 3,747 | 4,742 | 1,540 | 1,402 | 824 | ... | ||
| Wellington | - | Magellan | 11,344 | 11,760 | ... | 13,353 | 9,694 | ... | |
| Suez | ... | ... | 12,989 | ... | ... | ... | |||
| Panama | 8,857 | 8,272 | 11,425 | 11,944 | 9,205 | 6,834 | |||
| Distance | saved | 2,493 | 3,488 | 1,564 | 1,409 | 489 | ... | ||
| Melbourne | - | Cape Good Hope | 13,162 | 14,095 | ... | 11,845 | 8,186 | ... | |
| Suez | ... | ... | 11,654 | ... | ... | ... | |||
| Panama | 10,392 | 9,813 | 12,966 | 13,452 | 10,713 | 8,342 | |||
| Distance | saved | 2,770 | 4,282 | [1]1,312 | [1]1,607 | [1]2,527 | ... | ||
| Manila | - | Suez | 11,589 | 12,943 | 9,701 | 9,892 | 6,233 | ... | |
| Panama | 11,548 | 10,969 | 14,122 | 14,608 | 11,869 | 9,370 | |||
| Distance | saved | 41 | 1,974 | [1]4,421 | [1]4,716 | [1]5,636 | ... | ||
| Hongkong | - | Suez | 11,673 | 13,031 | 9,785 | 9,976 | 6,317 | ... | |
| Panama | 11,691 | 11,112 | 13,957 | 14,443 | 11,704 | 9,173 | |||
| Distance | saved | 18 | 1,919 | [1]4,172 | [1]4,467 | [1]5,387 | ... | ||
| Yokohama | - | Suez | 13,566 | 14,924 | 11,678 | 11,869 | 8,210 | ... | |
| Panama | 9,798 | 9,219 | 12,372 | 13,858 | 11,119 | 7,660 | |||
| Distance | saved | 3,768 | 5,705 | [1]694 | [1]1,989 | [1]2,909 | ... | ||
| Panama | 2,017 | 1,438 | 4,591 | 5,110 | 6,387 | ... | |||
See also map on [page 385]
[1] Distance saved in these cases is via Suez or Cape of Good Hope.
North of the Canal are the Central American countries of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico. On their Gulf coasts harbors are infrequent and poor, but on the Pacific plentiful. Their territory is as yet little developed, but with few manufacturers of their own they offer a still undeveloped market for ours. In all, the twelve Latin-American countries bordering on the Pacific have an area of over 2,500,000 square miles, or about that of the United States exclusive of Alaska and its insular possessions. They have a population of 37,000,000 and their foreign trade is estimated at $740,000,000. In this trade the United States is at the present time a sharer to the extent of $277,000,000 or about 37 per cent. With the Canal in operation it is believed that the total commerce will be doubled and the share of the United States raised to 50 per cent.
THE PANAMA CUT OFF
THIS MAP SHOULD BE STUDIED IN CONNECTION WITH THE TABLE OF COMPARATIVE DISTANCES ON [PAGE 384]
However, it is the great Australasian and Asiatic markets, now scarcely touched about the outskirts, to which the Canal will give the readiest access. Here other nations will profit equally with ours unless our merchants show a greater energy in the pursuit of foreign trade than they have of late years. Time was that the old shipping merchants of Boston, Philadelphia and New York asked odds of no man nor of any nation, but had their own ships plying in the waters of all the world, with captains who were at once navigators and traders—equally alert to avoid a typhoon and to secure a profitable cargo or charter. But that sort of foreign trade is now vanished with the adventurous spirits who pursued it. Unless conditions governing the American merchant marine materially change within the next two years—of which there seems today no likelihood—it will be England and Germany with their existing lines of ships that will chiefly benefit by the United States $400,000,000 gift to the commerce of the world.
Curiously enough New York, or for that matter any North Atlantic seaport of the United States, is in a sort a way station for ships from Europe to North Asiatic ports. In navigation the straight course is not always the shortest course, for the very simple reason that the equator is the longest way around the world. On account of the curvature of the earth’s surface a vessel from Liverpool to Hamburg to the Panama Canal by following the great circle route can make New York a stopping-place by adding only one day’s steaming to the voyage. On the other hand a vessel en route from Panama to Yokohama can touch at San Diego and San Francisco with only two days’ extra steaming. These facts make for the advantage of the shipper by adding to the vigor of competition for cargoes, but they add to the fierceness of the rivalry which the American ship owner will have to meet and for which the kindly government prepares him by forcing him to buy his ships in the costliest market and operate them in accordance with a hampering and extravagant system of navigation laws.